Click here to see a map of where Afghan refugees settled in Metro Vancouver

METRO VANCOUVER - When he suddenly lifted his sweater to reveal the enormous gaping wound under his arm and the scars on his belly, it was a stretch to think of this gracious Afghan refugee as one of the fortunate ones.

Still, Faiz Mohammed Fazul Ahmad could easily have been killed during armed conflict in his former country – as have been two million Afghans since 1978, with one out of five of the dead being a child.

Instead, Fazul Ahmad, a former shopkeeper wounded in a bomb blast in Kabul, is “lucky” to be among the seven million Afghans who have survived to become refugees.

Most of those exiled Afghans, the largest cohort of refugees the globe has ever seen, have fled to Iran, Pakistan, Russia and India.

But 730 came to Metro Vancouver between 2005 and 2009, making ethnic Afghans the second largest recent refugee group in the city, accounting for 18 per cent of the total. (The largest group is those fleeing the Myanmar military dictatorship, who account for about 20 per cent.)

Afghans have come at the invitation of the Canadian government, which is taking responsibility for some of those whose lives have been shattered by a war in which Canadian, American and other western soldiers are fighting.

Struggling to learn English, unable to find work, Fazul Ahmad, 48, and his wife have for almost two years been raising two children in a one-bedroom, $800-per-month apartment in the Burnaby-Edmonds neighbourhood.

More than 250 other Afghan refugees reside within a three-block radius, dwelling for the most part in basic three-storey walk-up apartments – near a SkyTrain station and just a couple of blocks from a Value Village second-hand store on Kingsway, where many buy their eclectic assortment of clothing.

At least five Afghan families live in the same apartment building as Fazul Ahmad. They get together often to talk about how to make a go of things in this strange new land.

“There are no jobs for my people. For Afghan people. Maybe a job for a day, sweeping the pharmacy. No English, no job,” said Fazul Ahmad, who struggles with English, but speaks the Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto.

Like many refugees, Fazul Ahmad has grievous health complications, including shortness of breath caused by lung damage from the bomb blast. “To doctor my breathing no good. Sometimes I fall down.”

The best he can hope for in Canada is a non-physical job. His eyes brighten when he says he would like to earn money by handing out free newspapers at a SkyTrain station.

She is at level three in English, while Fazul Ahmad is level one. Even though Natalia raises their children as a homemaker, she strives to fit in English classes and is hoping some day for a job.

She finds Metro Vancouver “very beautiful. The people are very friendly. It’s the first time I’ve seen the ocean.”

But their lives are not smooth.

The family were allowed to come to Canada, Natalia said, because her exiled, wounded husband “has no people.” Both his parents are dead, his siblings scattered.

They are surviving on B.C. welfare of roughly $1,200 a month for a family of four. Natalia sleeps in the only bedroom with the two children, Dzoved, three, and Victoria, 12.

Her husband sleeps each night on the couch.

The family is smartly dressed in their second-hand clothes, however. And their apartment is attractively decorated, with bold Persian rugs on the wall, classic portraits of Persian women, plastic flowers, strings of beading and countless purple, red and blue ornaments.

Many decorations are for Christmas, since Natalia is an Eastern Orthodox Christian who attends a nearby Serbian church.

Fazul Ahmad is Muslim, going occasionally to the Al-Saleem mosque on Canada Way in Burnaby. They say there is no religious tension between them.

Much of their clean furniture has either been donated by fellow refugees in the neighbourhood, or found at a spot just outside their apartment window where neighbourhood people leave old chairs and tables for those in desperate need.

That’s where the family found their working TV. They couldn’t believe someone would discard something so valuable. At the beginning of this interview, they were watching the news.

The family is utterly dependent on social services in the community. Among things he is thankful for, Fazul Ahmad listed the daycare, the food bank, his doctor, the person who donated his shoes, the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. and Edmonds Community School.

The latter is attended by Victoria, who bounced into the apartment with a big smile at the end of her school day. Before that her toddler brother, Dzoved, had been quietly cheerful and curious as his parents spoke.

In the apartment complex’s hallway, Immigrant Services Society staff member Slavica Stevanovic, herself a former refugee from Yugoslavia, guided a group of female Afghan refugees, some in head scarves, to her car to drive them to an appointment.

Asked what it’s like working with refugees from the world’s trouble spots, Stevanovic said warmly, “They’re nice people.”

Despite the deep gratitude of most refugees, soft-spoken Fazul Ahmad is one of many, particularly those with origins in Afghanistan, who has been battered down by tribulations over the past decade and more.

Low self-worth is a widespread problem that the Immigrant Services Society warns about in its new report, which maps refugee enclaves in Metro Vancouver. The report was created to encourage better coordination of services for refugees, especially war-ravaged Afghans.

“Low literacy as a result of little or no formal education in war zones and inconsistent and inadequate education in refugee camps makes learning a new language and the overall settlement process slower for some Afghans than for other newcomers,” the report says.

“For some, living for decades in an environment of war and refugee camps has also created low self-esteem, low motivation and extremely limited opportunities for utilizing skills or learning new ones.”

No one in the Fazul Ahmad family spelled it out, but there is a sense that the man of the house doesn’t hold on to extravagant hopes for himself in Canada.

“Shopping, banking, welfare. There are many, many problems,” Fazul Ahmed said with simmering frustration.

Those problems include trying to pay back the interest-bearing loan the Canadian government gave the family to fly here in February 2009. Canada is the only refugee-receiving country with such an expectation.

An additional problem for Afghan refugees is simply trying to forget the more than 30 years of chaotic wars that Afghans have fought against occupiers.

Afghans and other refugees in Burnaby-Edmonds area often get together, sometimes in the local parks, to support each other and share experiences. But Fazul Ahmad makes it clear one topic is not allowed.

“About war, nobody talks. It’s not important,” he said. Instead, the refugees discuss jobs and children and social services, while trying to forget the horrors they left behind.

Though Natalia’s story is different from her husband’s, since she was not herself escaping persecution but married a refugee, she makes it clear she joined her husband in coming to Canada for one main reason.

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